[sugar] Activities Portal: Proposal/suggestion

Mon May 19 17:51:40 EDT 2008

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 5:37 PM, Eduardo H Silva <hoboprimate at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope such a UI be developers friendly, i.e., not just be a list of
> activities which seemingly where made by magic elves ;) , providing no
> extra information of who made them or how to contact them.

It can be anything we want it to be. In fact, that's why I bring it up
now for discussion.  I hope that we can pull together a loose
direction for it that's in sync with (or at least complimentary to) a
more centralized web presence, since ultimately any system is only as
good as the activities that run on it, and I think making the process
of finding/obtaining new activities dead simple is in everyones' best
interests!

- Eben

> 2008/5/19, Eben Eliason <eben.eliason at gmail.com>:
>> I know I've tossed this out several times before, but I do so again to
>> be sure its in the backs of everyone's minds, at least once.  I think
>> the idea of creating an "appcast", or an RSS feed with enclosures for
>> bundles/updates, could be a clean way to handle the backend for such a
>> service.  Obviously, any number of websites could aggregate these, or
>> display them with various UIs, but it might not need to be entirely
>> centralized.
>>
>> I /really/ want to push forward the idea of a button within the UI for
>> "getting more activities".  I encourage everyone to consider this use
>> case as well when thinking about such a portal.  This button will
>> probably, in most cases, connect kids to the school server as a first
>> level repository, but could just as easily connect to any such
>> appcast, at the school, city, country, or even global level.  If we
>> actually support one or more of these feeds, then these all serve as
>> sources for activity (and content?) bundles which can be displayed
>> directly within the UI, in whatever interface suits, rather than
>> requiring kids to go to this or that website.
>>
>> This technique can also be used to notify kids of updates to existing
>> activities.  Also, for what it's worth, one could foresee the
>> capability of an activity such as Develop to set up local appcasts for
>> activities that kids create as well; there could be one feed for all
>> of Jimmy's activities.  From this perspective, no server is even
>> needed at all for "get more activities" to have some meaning, because
>> the feed could come from others on the mesh as well.
>>
>> - Eben
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 23:56 +0530, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
>>>> Has anyone evaluated Remora (http://wiki.mozilla.org/Update:Remora)
>>>> for this ? This is the software which powers addons.mozilla.org
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Sayamindu
>>>
>>> It is clearly closest to what we need.  Just haven't had the time to
>>> make it happen.
>>>
>>> If someone wants to go for it, please go ahead and try it; when you need
>>> access to install something (we have lots of bandwidth available), we'll
>>> be happy to help host it.
>>>                           - Jim
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 11:47 PM, Morgan Collett
>>>> <morgan.collett at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> > On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti
>>>> > <mpgritti at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >> Please wikify this! :)
>>>> >>
>>>> >> There is a note about something like this at the end of the doc page
>>>> >> which would be good to link:
>>>> >> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Documentation
>>>> >
>>>> > http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activity_portal
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >> On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 5:08 PM, Morgan Collett
>>>> >> <morgan.collett at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >>> I've been thinking about a better portal for downloading activities.
>>>> >>> I
>>>> >>> came up with some ideas, that I unfortunately don't have time to
>>>> >>> implement, but I would be happy to cheer someone on if they are
>>>> >>> inspired by this...
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> It should be easy to upload an activity (specifically after the first
>>>> >>> time it has been done) - easier than uploading to the wiki.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Activities should be categorised according to various properties,
>>>> >>> including:
>>>> >>> * The usual activity metadata from activity.info
>>>> >>> * Descriptions, as in http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities
>>>> >>> * Category, as in http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities
>>>> >>> * Age ranges the activity is suitable for? (Possibly a Mature
>>>> >>> category
>>>> >>> for Doom?)
>>>> >>> * Competencies required: Pre-reading, reading, writing, ...
>>>> >>> * Development maturity
>>>> >>>  - like sourceforge: planning / pre-alpha / alpha / beta / stable
>>>> >>> * Collaborative?
>>>> >>>  - yes / no / only (for activities like Connect or Chat that don't
>>>> >>> function as a single user activity)
>>>> >>> * Requires Internet? (e.g. Gmail)
>>>> >>> * Compatible with: Sugar / Glucose version or OLPC release or distro
>>>> >>> release... e.g. Sugar >= 0.81
>>>> >>> * Additional Dependencies (e.g. video-chat-activity needs extra RPMs
>>>> >>> not in a build)
>>>> >>> * Tags
>>>> >>> * Languages - pulled out of the .xo
>>>> >>> * Low power friendly?
>>>> >>> * Related activities (for suites or alternatives)
>>>> >>> * Screenshot
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Activities have Releases, which have status similar to the
>>>> >>> development
>>>> >>> maturity - Suitable for: development / QA / public release etc - and
>>>> >>> of course the downloadable bundle for that release...
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> The site should be internationalisable using standard i18n tools.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Bonus points for:
>>>> >>> * Publishing a text page like
>>>> >>> http://mock.laptop.org/repos/local.update1/XOS/index.html at
>>>> >>> predictable URLs that lists activities compatible with a given
>>>> >>> release, for easy downloading with scripts etc.
>>>> >>> * Publishing the source in public distributed revision control, to
>>>> >>> get
>>>> >>> easy contributions to code / templates
>>>> >>> * Deployment on a system that is monitored and actively sysadmined
>>>> >>> * Implementation in a Python web framework, to tap into the existing
>>>> >>> developer community :)
>>>> >>> * A catchy name...
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Future features:
>>>> >>> * Download statistics
>>>> >>> * Feedback to the author(s)
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Regards
>>>> >>> Morgan
>>>> >>> _______________________________________________
>>>> >>> Sugar mailing list
>>>> >>> Sugar at lists.laptop.org
>>>> >>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > Devel mailing list
>>>> > Devel at lists.laptop.org
>>>> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> --
>>> Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org>
>>> One Laptop Per Child
>>>
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>>>
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